REVIEW ESSAYS Problems of Population Theory*
Jefferson McMahan
I. INTRODUCTION
T h e eleven essays composing this volume address a wide range of interrelated questions within a domain which might be called "population theory." Among these questions are: What moral reasons might there be,
given certain conditions or expectations, for or against bringing people
into existence? T o which principles should we appeal in determining the
size, as well as the composition, of future populations? What moral reasons, if any, are there for attempting to secure the indefinite survival of the
human race? Assuming that there will be future generations, what are our
obligations, if any, concerning them, and what are the grounds of these
obligations?
These questions are of great theoretical and practical importance.
They pose extremely intractable problems for virtually all normative theories, and besides being themselves matters of urgent concern at both the
individual and social levels, they are intimately bound u p with a number
of other widely discussed moral issues. I am persuaded, for example, that
the problem of abortion cannot receive plausible treatment until certain
of the questions considered in these essays have been adequately dealt
with.
T h e essays published in this volume' make a valuable contribution to
population theory, though their importance lies more in the exposure
they give to various problems than in the solutions that they offer to these
problems. Most of the authors are unduly optimistic i n their belief that
they have provided acceptable answers to the questions cited above,
* A review of: R. I. Sikora and Brian Barry, eds., O b l i g a t ~ o n sto Future Grnerations
(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1978), pp. x i t 2 5 0 ; $15.00 (cloth); $10.00 (paper).
I am enormously indebted to Derek Parfit for his generous help in preparing this paper, and
I have profited from my acquaintance with his unpublished work in this area. I have also
benefited from comments o n an earlier draft by Jonathan Glover, Bet nard Williams, Brian
Barry, and Nick Denyer.
1. None of the essays has been previously published except for the one by Mary Warren
which originally appeared in the Canadian Journal of Philosophy 7 (1977): 275-89.
Ethzrs 92 (October 1981) 96-127
0 1981 b~ T h e University of Chicago 0014- 1704/82/9201-0008$01.00
McMahan
Review Essay
97
though their failure in this respect is perhaps as much the fault of the
subject as it is of the writers. T h e problems have not been solved, but it is
not clear that they admit of a tidy solution.
In what follows I shall examine various of the arguments put forward
in the book, and also conduct independent discussions of some of the
issues that are raised. I shall first comment very briefly on some of the
essays and then examine in greater detail the five which seem to me, for
various reasons, to require closer scrutiny.
T h e best argued piece in the collection is the lengthy paper by Brian
Barry o n intergenerational justice. Barry's central aim is to refute one
important argument for the view that obligations to future generations
cannot be grounded on relations of justice between generations. The argument is based on the view that considerations of justice cannot arise
where the "circumstances of justice" d o not obtain. Since at least one of
these circumstances, namely, the condition of relative equality, is absent
in relations between generations (because future generations cannot harm
us), future generations must therefore be "outside the scope of justice."
This argument is assailed via what is to my mind a successful challenge to
the doctrine of the circumstances of justice. Barry's paper is a n attractive
piece containing much good sense. I have failed to discuss it at greater
length, largely because I find myself i n substantial agreement with its
major arguments.
T h e paper by Gregory Kavka also contains interesting material,
though much of it is not sufficiently central to the area to merit extensive
discussion i n the present context. It is perhaps worth pointing out, however, that two of his major substantive claims seem not altogether harmonious. O n the one hand, he contends that we ought not to add to the
population if this would cause us to be unable to d o as well as we otherwise might by those who already exist. He argues for this claim on the
basis of an analogy with promising. If a person can fulfill only one
promise, and has already made a promise, then he simply ought not to
make any further promises. O n the other hand, Kavka claims that there is
value in the creation of extra happy people. But if he is right on this latter
point, then the analogy with promising collapses, for while he thus concedes that there are moral reasons for producing new people, he appears
to assume that there are n o similarly weighty reasons for making new
promises.
T h e theory advanced by Mary Warren is very similar to several of the
theories, in particular Narveson's, which I shall criticize later, and is thus
open to many of the objections I shall urge against these theories. Her
essay is accompanied by a reply by William Anglin, the latter portion of
which ably criticizes certain aspects of her theory.
T h e practice of discounting the utilities of future people is the subject of two of the papers, one by Robert Scott, Jr., who defends the practice, and the other by Mary Williams, who attacks it. I shall later suggest
why I think Scott's argument is unsuccessful.
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Ethics
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11. SCHWARTZ AND THE IDENTITY PROBLEM
Thomas Schwartz's piece is largely concerned with what Derek Parfit has
called "the Identity Problem."' As this problem is crucial for the arguments of a number of the papers in this volume, it will be well to state
briefly what it is. T h e pivotal claim is that the identity of a person is in
fact (on any plausible viw of this matter) dependent on the timing of his
conception. If a person's mother had conceived at a different time, she
would, i n fact, have had a different child. A second claim is that the
implementation of any large-scale social policy must, because of its
widespread though perhaps minor effects o n people's lives, affect the
timings of numerous conceptions. It follows that if a major social policy
is p u t into effect, there will exist as a result numerous people who would
not have existed if the policy had not been adopted. After several generations have passed, it is likely that there will be n o one alive who would
have existed otherwise. Suppose now that the policy in question is one
that ensures that the lives which will be lived at this future date will be
substantially less worth living than the lives which would have been lived
had the policy not been implemented. T h e upshot of the Identity Problem
is that the people whose lives will be of this relatively poor quality cannot
complain that they have been harmed3 or that they are worse off than they
might have been had we chosen some other policy; for if any other policy
had been adopted they would not exist. Thus, social policies which reduce
the quality of life in the further future cannot be criticized on the ground
that they are against the interests of the particular people w h o will live at
that time.
Parfit originally formulated this argument as a n objection to moralities which take what he calls a "person-affecting" form, moralities which
are concerned only with the effects of acts on particular people. These
moralities cannot directly criticize social policies of the sort just mentioned, and thus would appear to be unacceptable. Indeed, Richard Sikora, in his contribution to the volume, claims that any theory which has
this sort of consequence "can be dismissed out of hand" (p. 126-see the
whole of his sec. 5).
T h e position which Schwartz defends has this consequence-that is,
it permits us to ignore a policy's distant effects on the quality of life. It has
this feature because it insists that we cannot "be morally requzred to adopt
[a social policy] unless we owe it to someone to adopt [it]-unless our not
adopting [it] would, in some broad sense, wrong someoneM4(pp. 11-12). If
a future person would not have existed had we not adopted a certain
policy, we cannot have owed it to him to adopt some other policy instead;
2. Derek Parfit, "Overpopulation, Part I" (unpublished). Also see his "On Doing the
Best for O u r Children," in Ethzrs and Populatzon, ed. M . Bayles (Cambridge, Mass.:
Schenkman Publishing Co., 1976), p. 101.
3. T h e claim that these people have not been harmed is open to question in cases in
which their lives are worse than n o life at all. I shall return to this question later.
4. These claims are not equivalent. See Sec. 111, n. 9.
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99
nor could we (with the possible exception of cases of the sort mentioned in
n. 3) have wronged him by not adopting this other policy.
T h e fact that this position has the implication to which Parfit has
called attention is not something about which Schwartz is embarrassed or
apologetic. O n the contrary, it is the central thesis o f his paper that we
have n o obligation to avoid reducing the quality of life i n the further
future ( p . 3). ( H e later qualifies this claim.) Those who have looked
through Dennett's "Philosophical Lexicon" may recall the satirical definition of the verb "outsmart": "To embrace the conclusion of one's o p ponent's reductio ad a b s u r d u m argument." Many of us may feel that
Schwartz is "outsmarting" us. We would reject his position o n moral
requirement before we would acquiesce i n his conclusion. This choice is
made easier by the fact that his position is undefended. T h e only reason he
gives for thinking that our obligations must be owed to particular people
is that he cannot see how it could be otherwise (p. 11). A review of the
arguments i n the succeeding papers may incline us to skepticism regardi n g the prospect of finding a satisfactory alternative, but it nevertheless
seems clear that the inquiry into o u r "obligations to future generations"
does not end, but only begins, with the recognition of the Identity Problem.
111. NARVESON AND T H E PERSON-AFFECTING RESTRICTION
J a n Narveson's contribution to the volume under review is the most recent member of a series of seminal papers which he has devoted to the
issues with which the book is concerned. Explicit commitment to the
person-affecting as opposed to the "impersonal" version of Utilitarianism
appears first in Narveson's earlier work. T h i s most recent effort constitutes an attempt to modify his original theory i n response to certain
objections. T h e resulting theory, however, incorporates so many diverse
strands of thought, which are not clearly distinguished and which cohere
only doubtfully, that it is hard to tell whether the revised theory marks.an
advance over the original one or not. In this section I shall explore the
connections a m o n g the various elements in the revised theory and then
attempt to judge how successful the revision has been.
T h e theory which Narveson presents himself as defending is based o n
a n understanding of welfare according to which consideration should be
restricted to effects o n people for better or worse. This will be referred to as
the "person-affecting restriction." It can be a component in a pluralist,
nonutilitarian theory, or, as i n Narveson's case, it can form the basis of a
version of Utilitarianism. Narveson originally formulated this version of
Utilitarianism in order to avoid certain implications of the "Total
Viewn5-the version of Utilitarianism according to which what matters is
.5. T h e phrase is Narveson's. 'This version of 'tilitarianism is based o n a "totaling"
principle which can also be a component of a nonutilitarian m o r a l i ~ y It
. should be emphasized that problems of population theory are not peculiar to Utilitarianism (though they do
not arisr quite so acutely for somr throries-e.g., Libertarianism).
100
Ethics
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the total amount of utility i n the world. T h e Total View implies, inter
alia, that it could be better to expand a population even if everyone in the
resulting population will be worse off than everyone in the original, and
that it will normally be wrong for a person to remain childless. Narveson's theory avoids these implications if it incorporates the claim that a
person cannot have been affected for better or worse, or been benefited or
harmed, by being brought into existence. I shall discuss this claim, about
which Narveson is curiously ambivalent, in the next section.
T h i s theory has encountered certain problems. Consider the view
that, while the fact that a person's life would be worse than n o life at all
(or "worth not living") constitutes a strong moral reason for not bringing
him into existence, the fact that a person's life would be worth living
provides n o (or only a relatively weak) moral reason for bringing him into
existence. This view, which I shall refer to as "the Asymmetry," is a p proved both by Narveson and by common sense. But since Narveson's
theory incorporates the claim that conceiving" child does not affect h i m
for better or worse, it can account only for the second component of the
Asymmetry. We will see later why Narveson thinks that his theory can
justify the whole of the Asymmetry. A second problem (which Narveson
unfortunately runs together with the first) is that his theory cannot require a couple to do what would cause them to have a happier rather than
a less happy child where, because of the Identity Problem, these children
would be different. If, for example, a woman has a temporary condition
which would cause any child she conceives now to be handicapped, Narveson's theory could not require her to postpone conception until her
condition is corrected. Narveson thinks, however, that this second challenge can be met by simply introducing the following qualification: if one
has decided to have a child, one should choose to have a happier rather
than a less happy child where this is possible. T h u s Narveson summarizes
his revised theory as follows:
(1)New additions to population ought not to be made at the expense
of those who otherwise exist, even if there would be a net increment
i n total utility considered in person-independent terms. But (2) new
additions ought to be made if the benefit to all, excluding the newcomer, would exceed the cost to all, including him or her, as compared with the net benefit of any alternatives which don't add to
population [i.e., if the benefit minus the cost would exceed the net
benefit of any alternative]. Finally, (3) within those limits, the decision whether to add to population is u p to the individuals involved
in its production, provided that if they have a choice of which child
to produce they produce the happier one, other things being equal.
[Pp. 55-56]
Principle 1 simply states a consequence of the person-affecting restriction. Principle 2 is clearly intended to incorporate the Asymmetry
into Narveson's theory, though it does not, in fact, articulate the Asymme6. I assume that "conception" is acceptable as shorthand for "coming into existence."
McMahan
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101
try unless "if" is read as "if and only if." Principle 3 contains the
addition cited above.
There is an obvious problem here. In this essay and elsewhere, Narveson is explicit in affirming the claim that conception cannot be a benefit
or a harm (e.g., p . 48), yet it is clear that this claim is incompatible with
2-that is, with the Asymmetry expressed in person-affecting terms. T h e
notion of the "cost to the newcomer" must be understood to mean the
extent to which the newcomer is harmed by coming to exist. T h e only
alternative is to construe the "cost" impersonally, as an increase in the
amount of misery in the world; but this alternative involves giving u p the
person-affecting restriction.
How is it, then, that Narveson thinks that he can establish the
Asymmetry on the basis of his theory? T h e reason he thinks this is, I
suggest, that he tends to rely on the view that an act cannot be wrong
unless there is some actual person for whom it would be worse. There
must, in short, be a complainant. There is abundant evidence to suggest that Narveson accepts this requirement (e.g., pp. 43, 50, and 55-56).
I shall cite only one example. O n page 47 Narveson gives what he takes to
be the reason why his theory does not impose a n obligation to produce a
happy child. One would expect him to say that the reason is that conceiving the child would not count as affecting him for the better. But in fact
what he says is that "if we do not have it, it is not the case that the child in
question will be worse off, because it won't be at all." If Narveson is here
appealing to the requirement that there be a complainant, then in order to
establish this component of the Asymmetry he does not even need the
claim that conception cannot be a benefit or a harm. Indeed, if he were to
abandon that claim altogether, he could then support the whole of the
Asymmetry on the basis of this requirement.
This requirement is not only compatible with the person-affecting
restriction, but can even be regarded as one way of interpreting it. In fact,
if we decide that conception can be a benefit or a harm, then there are two
possible ways of understanding the person-affecting restriction. These
correspond to two different ways of construing the phrase "worse for
people." One interpretation keeps the requirement that there be a complainant. O n this interpretation, an act is worse for people only if there
are or will be people for whom it is worse. O n the other interpretation, an
act is worse for people if some other act would have been better for people.7 I shall call these two interpretations, respectively, the narrow and
broad versions of the person-affecting restriction. These yield two corresponding versions of Utilitarianism. T h e difference between these should
not be confused with the difference between classical and negative
of these versions can require us to benefit people.
U t i l i t a r i a n i ~ m .Both
~
7. These two claims, stated somewhat differently, are illuminatingly discussed by Parfit in "Overpopulation, Part I."
8. Narveson confesses that he feels "an uncomfortable presentiment" that he is being
influenced by the view that "our duty is only not to harm people, rather than to promote
102
Ethics
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T h e difference is that, o n the narrow version, we ought to benefit people
only when, if we fail to d o so, there are or will be people for whom this is
worse. These are the "complainants." O n the broad version, n o complainant is required. T o see this, suppose that the act which would be best
for people is one which brings new people into existence, and that these
latter people would be the ones affected for the better. If this act is not
performed, there will be n o one for whom this is worse, but it will still
count, o n the broad version, as worse for people. I shall return to this
version later.
Narveson never actually states the view I have attributed to him. But
he seems to be gesturing toward it when he claims that "duties must
always be duties to someone" (p. 43). This claim will not, however, do the
required work. Rather than supporting the Asymmetry, it is actually incompatible with it. O n this view there could not be a duty not to produce
a miserable child, for there would be n o one to whom it would be owed. It
seems to me that what Narveson actually has in mind here (or at least
what he needs) is the claim that a duty (or perhaps an obligation) must be
such that, if it is violated, there is someone who is thereby wronged.9
T h i s claim is analogous (though not equivalent) to the narrow version
and similarly supports the Asymmetry.
If Narveson were to adopt the narrow version (or the analogue just
cited) he could then explain the Asymmetry and thus preserve his principles 1 and 2. H e could thus avoid the first of the two objections cited
earlier. But he could not avoid the second; for he would be unable to
preserve 3. For if a person were to disobey 3, the narrow version would
judge that his act was not worse i n person-affecting terms. Narveson
recognizes that if 3 is disobeyed "no,existing person is [thereby made]
worse off than he or she might have been" (p. 55). He seems to think,
however, that this problem can be surmounted by pointing o u t that "one
person is worse off than another might have been if the other option had
been taken"; but it is hard to see, in the light of Narveson's theoretical
posture, how this observation is relevant.
T h e alternative is to return to Narveson's original theory with its
insistence that conception cannot be a harm or a benefit. T h i s theory,
however, avoids neither of the two objections. T h e theory cannot support
the Asymmetry, and principle 3, which is a concession to the impersonal
theory introduced to avoid the second objection, violates the person-affecting restriction.
Neither theory, therefore, avoids both objections. Moreover, both
theories have the same implications for social policies, exposed by the
Identity Problem, which Schwartz's position has. T h e choice between the
two is, thus, not very tantalizing, and I can think of n o third way in which
utility however and whenever" ( p . 56). If, ho\vever, he is appealing to something like the
narrow version, this suspicion is unfounded.
9. T h i s and Narveson's o w n claim correspond to Schwartz's two claims about moral
requirement. T h a t Schwartz seems to regard the two as equivalent suggests that Narveson
may be doing the same.
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103
Narveson can secure the coherence of the elements he wants his theory to
encompass. Since he is attempting to defend commonsense intuitions,
this is a n unwelcome result.
Let us suppose, however, that 1, 2, and 3 can all draw support
from some unknown source. Is the theory comprising these three claims
acceptable?
Narveson's theory is designed to deal with two types of case. Of the
first sort are cases in which we must decide whether to add to the existing
population or not. These cases are governed by principles 1 and 2.
Cases of the second sort, which are governed by principle 3, are those i n
which it has been determined that some addition to the population is to
be made, though it must be decided which particular addition this will be.
Narveson confines his attention to cases involving the possible additon of
a single person. But the range of cases which Narveson's theory must
cover is not as narrowly circumscribed as he seems to assume. While it is
true that, at least at present, only parents can produce new people, there is
clearly a sense i n which members of a community concerned with population policy may also be said to face decisions concerning the possibility of
adding to the population. T h u s , we need to consider not only the possibility of adding a single individual, but also the possibility of adding an
entire group. At this point a problem arises.
Suppose that population planners have, in accordance with Narveson's principles 1 and 2, determined that it will be advantageous to
adopt a policy which would encourage people to bring a large number of
new people into existence. And suppose further that there is a choice
between two policies, each of which would result in the production of a
different g r o u p of people. While one group would be more numerous and
would, thus, have a greater total of happiness, the other would be less
numerous and would have a higher average level of happiness (because,
for example, each member of the smaller g r o u p might be better off than
anyone in the larger). T h e two groups would, moreover, have n o members
i n common. Finally, let us assume that there would be n o advantage to
existing people i n the production of one g r o u p rather than the other.
Principle 3 would presumably instruct the planners to opt for the happier of the two groups; but which one is this?
At first it would appear that Narveson would favor the g r o u p with
the higher average, since his "concern is that whatever people there are be
as happy as possible. . . . T h e concern that there be more people, simply
to maximize instances of happiness in the universe, seems," he writes, "of
another order" (p. 55). But he is, i n fact, debarred from appealing to an
averaging rule, since he accepts the objection which Parfit has urged
against the Average View (the version of Utilitarianism which instructs us
to maximize average utility), and this objection is equally applicable in
the present case.1° T h u s , Narveson is left without a principle for evaluati n g outcomes in which different numbers of people exist, and his theory is,
10. See Narveson's "Moral Problems of Population," i n Bayles, p. 74. Parfit's objection
is briefly stated in Sec. VIII of the present paper.
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Ethics
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as it stands, incomplete. For most moral theories, incompleteness on this
point may not be regarded as a very grave defect, since the problem is not
one that men have often faced, or one about which we have very decided
intuitions; but it does seem a lamentable shortcoming i n a theory that
purports to deal with population problems. Of course, Narveson might
simply say that, as long as effects on existing people are equal, it does not
matter which group is produced (except perhaps when it is obvious that
one group is "happierH-for example, when it is preferred on all common
criteria: total, average, maximin, maximax, etc.). I doubt, however, that
anyone who finds 3 a n important component of Narveson's theory will
be satisfied with this response.
IV. T H E PROBLEM O F CONCEPTION
T h u s far I have argued not only that there is a n important objection to the
theory comprised by Narveson's three principles, but also that this conjunction of principles cannot be supported by either Narveson's original
theory or the narrow version of the person-affecting restriction. Both of
these latter theories, moreover, are themselves open to serious objections.
If, however, Narveson were still tempted to choose between them, one
consideration which would certainly be relevant to his choice is the question whether the claim that conception cannot be a benefit or harm is true.
T h e claim is, of course, of interest and importance apart from its relation
to Narveson's theoretical concerns, and for this reason it is regrettable that
it is hardly touched on in the book. T h e only writer who mentions it is
Narveson himself, and his discussion of it is relatively cursory. I propose,
therefore, to attempt to fill the lacuna by briefly examining this claim. I
shall approach the topic by way of Narveson's comments.
Although, as we have seen, Narveson's argument at one point presupposes the rejection of the claim, he nevertheless professes to embrace it.
He contends that, "since conception is not something which happens to
someone who is already around, . . . we cannot say that the resulting
person is better off than he or she would have been if that event had not
taken place" (p. 48). This claim presupposes what Narveson calls "the
comparative view," that is, the view that effects on a person's welfare can
be evaluated only by comparison with alternative states i n which the
person would be better or worse off. But this view has the consequence
that the effects of saving lives cannot be evaluated, since death is not a
state in which a person is worse off. T o avoid this implication, the comparative view should be restated so that the relevant comparison is with
alternatives which, for the person concerned, are better or worse, or more
or less desirable. Narveson's claim could then be that, while death is
normally worse for a person, or less desirable for him, than continued
existence, there is n o one for whom nonconception is worse. T h u s , o n the
comparative view, one can affect people for the better by saving them, but
not by conceiving them.
There are two ways of resisting this argument. One is to contend that,
from the perspective of an actual person, nonconception can be viewed as
a n alternative which would have been worse (or better), not just impersonally, but for that person. T h e fact that people d o manifest attitudes of
gladness or regret concerning their own conceptions suggests that this
contention is at least intelligible.ll T h e contention should, moreover, be
compatible with the obvious truth that, in cases in which conception does
not i n fact occur, this is not worse for the person who might have existed.
T h e difference between these two contentions is that while the latter implies that there is never any subject to whom any misfortune could be
ascribed, the former presupposes that the subject is entrenched in the terra
firma of actuality.
It seems possible, on the basis of the foregoing contention, to reason
as follows: "If we produce a new person, he can then claim that his
nonconception would have been worse for him, and therefore that, on the
comparative view, his conception was better for him. T h u s even on the
comparative view we would have benefited this person by bringing about
his existence." On the other hand, however, it seems equally admissible to
reason o n the basis of the opposite assumption: "If we d o not produce the
new person, this will not be worse for him, since he will then never exist.
Thus, on the comparative view, it cannot be better for him to be brought
into existence." In short, if we accept the comparative view, we seem to be
faced with the following paradox: if not producing a new person would
not be worse for him, then producing him would not be better for himthough if he is produced, then it can be said that not producing him
would have been worse for him, so that producing him was better for him.
T h e preceding argument seems both obscure and inconclusive. T h e
second response to Narveson's argument is more straightforlvard: it is
simply to reject the comparative view. T h e reason that this view tends to
command ready assent is that the case which presents the most radical
challenge to i t-namely, conception-has, until recently, rarely come u p
for discussion. T h u s , there has been little occasion for questioning its
validity. But suppose that in the case of conception the requisite comparisons cannot be made. Then, if we think that there is value in the creation of
happy people, or negative value in the creation of miserable people, and if
we are dissatisfied with the impersonal account which holds that these
acts (or rather their consequences) have value only "from the point of
view of the universe" rather than that of the people created, we may be
inclined to dispute the necessity of comparison. While we might concede
that phrases such as "better off" and "better for" are essentially comparative, and thus that conception cannot affect a person for better or worse,
nevertheless it would still be possible to contend that conception can
affect a person "noncomparative1y"-that is, it can affect him for good or
ill even though the alternative would not have been worse or better for
him.
11. "Let the day perish wherein I was born) And the night when it \<as said/ There is a
man-child conceived" (Job 3:3).
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Ethics
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Narveson considers the possibility of abandoning the comparative
view, but appears to find this move unsatisfactory:
T h e best o n e could d o is set the utility-state of [a] possible person at
zero if not conceived, a n d then say that the person's conception has
benefited h i m to, say, the extent of the contribution of his life-long
utility attributable to his genetic make-up as opposed to other contributing factors. But this is to equate the condition of someone who
is neither happy nor unhappy with that of o n e who is dead, and that
seems wrong; worse yet, it is to equate it with "one" who was never
born in the first place, and thus has n o identity at all. And that seems
very strange indeed. [P. 481
Narveson's central objection to dropping the comparative view is, thus,
connected with the problem of assigning a value to nonexistence-in
particular, the problem of ranking nonexistence in relation to a scale of
utility-value. His uneasiness might, however, be to some extent dispelled
if he were to dispense with certain assumptions which he appears to
make. For one thing, his language is suggestive of a hedonistic understanding of utility, so that the implication of the passage just quoted
might be that, if nonexistence is assigned a value of zero, then nonexistence can be n o better or worse than a state of hedonic neutrality (cf. Sec.
VII). Since Narveson is avowedly not a hedonist, he might regard this
observation as a reductio against hedonism rather than as a point against
rating nonexistence at zero, and in this I think he would be right. It seems
to me that a life with a utility-value of zero should be understood as a life
which, for whatever reasons,12 is neither preferable to nor any worse than
n o life at all. O n this view it seems reasonable to assign a value of zero to
nonexistence.
Another factor which seems to contribute to Narveson's reluctance to
embrace the view that nonexistence has a value of zero is the assumption
that this view requires the assignment of "utility-states" to people who do
not exist. T h i s ground for hesitation can also be removed. Nonexistence
involves the absence of utility, positive or negative, and if utility is what
has value (or what constitutes value), then nonexistence has n o value.
T h u s , in aligning nonexistence at the zero point o n the utility-scale, we
are thereby enabled to begin calculating o n a blank slate when we attempt
to estimate the extent to which a person has been benefited or harmed by
being conceived (or, alternatively, the extent to which his conception will
increase or decrease total utility-excluding effects o n other people). Calculating o n a blank tablet does not, however, involve attributing a utilitystate to a possible person. It simply registers the fact that prior to the
person's conception there was, so to speak, a utility-vacuum which that
person's life has subsequently filled.
Matters are perhaps complicated, however, if we accept an analysis of
utility in terms of the satisfaction of desire, for then it might be urged that
12. T h i s understanding is thus compatible with, but not favorable to, a hedonistic
analysis of utility.
McMahan
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107
there are numerous instances i n which nonexistence does have a certain
utility-value-namely, those cases in which a person's nonexistence constitutes the state of affairs the obtaining of which satisfies or frustrates one
of his desires-for example, the desire to die or the desire not to die. This
complication arises, however, only in connection with posthumous nonexistence, since neither the total nor the prenatal nonexistence of a person
can, when it obtains, constitute the state of the world which satisfies or
frustrates a desire of his. Thus, the preference theory of utility poses n o
obstacle to setting the value of prenatal nonexistence at zero, and thus
cannot be invoked to reinforce Narveson's objection to the abandonment
of the comparative view.
T h u s far I have argued against Narveson's defense of the claim that
conception cannot be a benefit or harm. I d o not pretend, however, to have
shown that this claim is false, but only that it is not obviously true.
Nevertheless, if we suppose that it is false, a further problem arises: how
should we determine the amount by which a person is benefited or
harmed by being conceived? T h e assumption which is usually made by
adherents of the Total View is that the act of creating a new person should
be credited with increasing or decreasing the total utility by the net
amount of positive or negative utility which the new person's life can be
expected to contain (not counting effects on others). Should we make the
parallel assumption that conception benefits or harms a person to the
extent of his lifelong balance of utility, or should we assume that the effect
is of a lesser magnitude?
Narveson's view, as we have seen, is that conception could be said to
benefit a person only by the amount of his utility attributable to his
genetic endowment: . . . Conception, as such, contributes only a small
fraction of the utility of the resulting person, most of which is due to
ongoing activities of parents, etc., etc." (pp. 53-54). H e does not argue for
this view, but simply registers his agreement with L. W. Sumner, whose
argument is-presumably, for n o reference is given-contained in an unpublished paper, "Morality and the Production of Life" (pp. 24-28).
Sumner argues against the view that the benefit (or harm) which conception confers is equal i n amount to the net total of utility in the person's
subsequent life o n the basis of an analogy with voting. H e notes that, just
as conception "is a necessary condition of all the happiness that [a person]
will enjoy," so i n a case where 100 votes are required to win an election
and exactly 100 votes are cast, each vote is a necessary condition for
winning. But, just as it would (allegedly) be absurd to credit each vote
with the whole of the benefit derived from winning the election, so it
would likewise be absurd to credit conception with the whole of the
benefit for which it is necessary (but not sufficient). T o determine how
credits should be assigned, Sumner recommends the general "method of
factoring the causal contributions of those agents whose actions were
jointly sufficient to bring about the result" (p. 26). Thus, in the case cited,
each voter presumably contributes one one-hundredth of the result.
"
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What is puzzling about this view, however, is that it leads one to
expect that, if one were to subtract the contribution of o n e of the voters,
one would be left with 99 percent of the original outcome. But a
person cannot be 99 percent elected. Analogously, it suggests that
the total a m o u n t of benefit i n a person's life would have been only
slightly less in the absence of the fractional contribution to that sum
which, according to this view, was made by his conception-just as it
would have been slightly less had he not been treated to dinner the other
evening. But again this apparent implication is obviously false. There is,
moreover, a further, related objection to Sumner's view which is pressed
by Sikora in his essay. Sikora's own example is rather exotic, however; so I
will present an analogue of his argument, using the example of conception itself. Suppose that it is open to a n agent either to conceive a child or
to benefit an existing person. (Assume that in each case both the cost to
the agent and effects o n others would be equal.) While the child would
subsequently be very happy, the amount of this happiness attributable to
its conception u ~ o u l d ,according to Sumner's view, be only a fraction of
the total-indeed, it would be less than the a m o u n t of benefit which the
agent could bestow o n the existing person. If the agent's concern is to
maximize benefit then, according to Sumner's view, he ought to benefit
the existing person, even though the enormously greater a m o u n t of benefit which the child could have enjoyed will thereby be lost.
Sumner's view fails to distinguish between cases i n which a person's
contribution is indispensable to the production of a desired outcome and
cases i n which it is not. Consider, for example, a case in which each of 100
people gives a dollar to charity. Sumner's view yields the right answer in
this case. But it implies that the contribution of each donor in this case
counts for just as much as the contribution of each voter in the voting
case, and this is implausible since, while the lack of one dollar would not
diminish the value of the others, the lack of o n e vote would neutralize the
efficacy of the other ninety-nine.
T h e foregoing arguments seem to indicate that Sumner's view is
deficient i n cases in which some or all of the factors involved in the
production of a n outcome are necessary. Conception is such a case. It
u ~ o u l dseem, moreover, that these objections to Sumner's view will hold
against any view that ascribes to conception only some fractional contribution to a person's subsequent utility. Nor will it d o to claim that, since
conception is not itself sufficient for any benefit to the person conceived,13
it therefore contributes nothing, for the same could be said of each of the
100 votes. Thus, if only by default we seem to be left with the view that
conception benefits or harms a person to the full extent of his overall
balance of utility.
T h i s view, i n fact, seems plausible. Suppose that we accept the
person-affecting restriction and also believe that conception can be a
13. T o this extent, Narceson is right to mention "the ongoing acticities of parents, etc."
These are also necessary o n each occasion of some particular benefit.
McMahan
Review Essay
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harm. If a person would be utterly wretched throughout the whole of his
life if he is conceived, then according to the view Sumner and Narveson
advocate, only a fraction of the net amount of misery he would experience
should be weighed against the benefit to others of having h i m conceived.
But according to the view I recommend, if the net amount of harm he
u ~ o u l dsubsequently suffer is greater than the amount by which people
will be affected for the worse if he is not conceived, then he ought not to be
conceived. T h i s seems the more plausible view to take, since it is this
a m o u n t of harm, a n d not some fraction of it, that will be prevented if the
person is not conceived.
I shall conclude this section by reviewing where the various theories
discussed in connection with Narveson's essay now stand. Narveson's
original theory seemed inadequate for several reasons. This judgement is
reinforced if we decide that the claim that conception cannot be a benefit
or harm should be rejected. T h e narrow version of the person-affecting
restriction also faced strong objections. T h e other alternative mentioned
was the broad version. Parfit has claimed that this version restates the
Total View. And if what I have argued is right-that is, if conception
benefits a person to the extent of his lifelong balance of utility-then
Parfit's claim is correct: the broad version is extensionally (though not
formally) equivalent to the Total View. These conclusions d o not force us
to accept the Total View, for there are other possibilities-for example,
the Average View-but they do not augur well for the attempt to find an
acceptable way of avoiding the implications of that theory within a consequentialist frameurork.l4
V. BENNETT'S T H E O R Y
A dominant concern of Jonathan Bennett's essay is to defend what, in
Section 111, I referred to as the Asymmetry-the claim that while the fact
that a person would have a life worth not living provides a reason not to
conceive him, the fact that a person would have a life worth living does
not provide a reason to conceive him. His defense consists i n laying down
the follou~ingrule: "The question of whether action A is morally obligatory depends only u p o n the utilities of people who would exist if A were
not performed" (p. 62).
This rule prevents us from counting, as a reason for doing action A,
the utilities of people who u ~ o u l dexist if and only if A were performed;
thus, it provides the desired claim that there can be n o obligation, based
on a person's probable utilities, to bring that person into existence. Now
it would seem that, by parity of reasoning, we should also be prevented
from counting, as a reason against doing A, the utilities of people who
would exist if a n d only if A were performed. But this is not the case.
Bennett's rule requires that forbidden acts be described i n terms of the
language of "not doing." T h i s requirement entails that the final clause of
14. T h i s paragraph summarizes some of the main conclusions of Parfit's "Overpopulation, Part I."
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Ethics
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the rule (where "A" has been replaced by a description of the act) will, in
these cases, always contain a n instance of double negation, so that one is
allowed to consider the consequences which ensue when the act in question is performed. Take, for example, the case of conceiving a miserable
child. If we replace A with "not conceiving a miserable child," Bennett's
rule reads: "The question of whether not conceiving a miserable child is
obligatory depends only upon the utilities of people w h o would exist if
the act of not conceiving a miserable child were not performed (i.e., if the
child were conceived)." This structural feature of his rule permits Bennett
to contend that, if people come into existence as a result of a certain act,
their utilities can count as a reason for forbidding the act, but not as a
reason for requiring that it be performed.
Bennett supplies two reasons for thinking that his rule captures the
form i n which claims about utility should be expressed: "The main reason . . . is that it is harmless . . . " (pp. 63 a n d 72). In the area of morality
with which the essays i n this volume are concerned, a "harmless" rule
would indeed be a welcome discovery; but Bennett is deceived to think
that his rule merits this description. His rule is structurally analogous to
the narrow version of the person-affecting restriction, and thus inherits
the objections to that theory which we have considered in connection with
Schwartz's and Narveson's essays. T h e rule is therefore not innocuous,
and the main reason for accepting it collapses.l5
Bennett has, however, a further reason for thinking his rule correct,
which is based on the contention that "no sense attaches to '(dis)utility for
a person who is at n o time actual."' H e contends that philosophers who
rely "on the notion of amounts of possibly unowned happiness" are
guilty of "a philosophical mistake": "As well as deploring the situation
where a person lacks happiness, these philosophers also deplore the situation where some happiness lacks a person . . ." (pp. 61, 64, and 68). Bennett believes that his rule allows him to avoid this sort of "bad philosophy" (p. 70).
It seems obvious, however, that, rather than providing grounds for
the acceptance of the rule, the exposure of this philosophical mistake (if it
is one) should persuade us to reject the rule. If, i n accordance with the
rule, we judge that a certain person must be prevented from coming to
exist o n account of the negative utility which he would have to experience, are we not guilty of the alleged absurdity of taking account of the
negative utilities of "a person who is at n o time actual"? When we applaud a decision not to produce a miserable child, are we not welcoming a
situation in which some misery lacks a person? In order to maintain his
stance o n "unowned utilities," Bennett must hold that we cannot say that
15. It might be thought that the rule would also encounter difficulties in judging it
obligatory to refrain from killing, since it requires that the obligation be based on consideration of the utilities of those who would exist if the person were killed, thereby excluding the
utilities of the cictim. T h i s objection can, however, be met by stipulating that the word
"exist" must be understood tenselessly-as referring to all those who exist at some time.
(This reply is similar to the reply which can be made to a common argument against the
Average View; see Sec. V1.I
McMahan
Review Essay
111
it would be (or would have been) wrong to produce a miserable person; we
could recognize and condemn this crime only when it is actually committed. T h i s is not only a n odd result, but it is also at variance with the
deliverances of his rule.
T h e "philosophical mistake" is, therefore, presumably not a mistake.
But if Bennett's rule is rejected (on account of the implications exposed by
the Identity Problem), then the Asymmetry remains unsupported, and we
are left with the possibility that there are reasons for bringing people into
existence which are grounded on the prospective happiness of those people, and which are equally strong as the reasons against producing miserable people. But to concede this possibility would, of course, lead us
straight back to the Total View.
VI. SUMNER AND T H E AVERAGE VIEW
Although L. W. Sumner's essay is ostensibly "devoted to exploring and
defending" the Total View, it in fact constitutes a n attempt to refute the
Average View. These two aims are in a sense complementary, for "since
the average theory was devised precisely because it was thought to fare
better than the total theory with problems of population" (p. 97), the
defeat of the Average View in connection with these problems would
provide a n indirect and partial vindication of the Total View. Sumner's
strategy is thus "to subvert the average theory by stages, first by removing
one of its principal supports, next by showing that it violates one of the
basic values of any utilitarian theory, and finally by outlining its singularly implausible implications" (p. 99). I shall review Sumner's arguments in the order in which he presents them, using his discussion as an
introduction to a n independent examination of some problems inherent
in the Average View.
T h e prop of which, in his first argument, Sumner wishes to deprive
the Average View consists in the claim, which he attributes to Rawls, "that
the only version of utilitarianism obtainable by his [Rawls's] contract
method is the average theory . . . " (p. 100). By demonstrating that,
through the manipulation of certain features of the contractual situation,
one can in fact supply a contractual derivation of the Total View, Sumner
succeeds in restoring parity between the two views vis-2-vis contract theory (though both derivations rely on implausible assumptions).
Among the reasons which Rawls cites why the persons in the original
position would prefer the Average to the Total View is that the latter
"entails that so long as the average utility per person falls slowly enough
when the number of individuals increases, the population should be encouraged to grow indefinitely n o matter how low the average has
fallen."l6 As long as the contractors are allowed to know that they will
16. J o h n Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), p p . 162-63. T h e
consequence cited by Rawls is (roughly) what Parfit has called the "repugnant conclusion"
(see Secs. VII a n d VIII). Presumably, when Rawls speaks of the average falling "slowly
enough," he means that it falls at a n ever-slower rate s o that it never drops below the zero
point-that is, the point at which life ceases to be worth living. His statement o f the
consequence certainly requires this stipulation.
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exist, it will be against their interests to select a theory which has this
consequence. But, as Sumner recognizes, this consequence is not only
objectionable from the self-interested point of view of the contractors; it is
also morally counterintuitive. Sumner addresses this objection by conjecturing that i n practice the Total View would not have this disturbing
implication, but I find his reasoning overly sanguine and unconvincing
(see Sec. VII).
Sumner's second argument charges that the Average View violates the
requirement of "utilitarian impartiality" by discriminating against certain people simply o n the basis of their "temporal location" (p. 103). He
attempts to substantiate this allegation by providing an illustration. If we
could produce a certain a m o u n t of utility either by increasing the utility
of Smith, a n existing person, or by bringing a new person, Jones, into
existence, the Average View would require that we prefer the outcome in
which Smith's utility is increased, even though the "gain" to each would
be the same. T h e average would be lower if we were to produce Jones,
because we would then have to divide through the same total of utility by
a larger denominator. Sumner concludes that "the average theory favours
Smith over Jones s i m p l y because he already exists. . . . T h e preference
which the average theory exhibits is a pure (and arbitrary) preference for
the living over the as yet unborn" (p. 103).
T h e reason that Sumner gives for condemning the "preference for the
present over future persons" is that effects o n people's utilities are "equally
real regardless of where a n d when they occur" (pp. 102 and 104). We must
ask, however, how "real" the effect o n Jones's utility is if we "discriminate" against him. If we follow the dictate of the Average View and "give
preference" to Smith, then Jones is not, as Sumner says he is, among those
"affected by the choice"; he is not simply a person who is "as yet unborn";
he has n o "temporal location." A fortiori, we have not discounted his
utilities o n the "morally irrelevant" ground of temporal location.
I think that Sumner's confusion here is the result of his falling victim
to his own equivocal use of the phrase "future person." H e often speaks of
"future and contingent persons" ( p . 103) or "future (possible)" persons
(p. 109). In these instances he means by the phrase "future people" what
Kavka does when he says, in his contribution to the volume, that "the
trouble with future people . . . is not that they do not exist yet, it is that
they might n o t exist at all" (p. 192). At other times, however, he talks, for
example, of "future (as yet non-existent)" people, implying that these
people will exist at some point in the future (p. 102).17It is this latter sense
of the phrase that his argument requires, but the people against whom the
Average View "discriminates" are of the type described by the former
sense of the phrase.
17. Cf. Narceson's view that "future people are real. They differ from us by virtue of
their location in time . . ." (p. 39). T h i s seems to me the most felicitous use of the term. A
future person is a person who will exist in the future. O n the other hand, a person who
might or might not exist i n the future is a "possible person"; and a person who might exist
or might have existed, but who in fact never will exist, is a "merely possible person."
McMahan
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T h e third argument which Sumner advances against the Average
View does not, as he acknowledges, originate with him. It has, in fact,
enjoyed a wide currency,lg and therefore merits careful attention. The
objection, stated crudely, is that the Average View would require us to be
perpetually killing off below-average members of the population, for "every time we get rid of someone whose utility contribution is below average
the average instantly rises (which means that still more persons are below
it, whose elimination will raise it again, and so on . . . )" (p. 105).
Sumner's exposition of this argument is instructive, since he explicitly
states the assumption which is required to generate the objection:
T h e average theory calculates its average over that pool of persons
who will actually exist as a result of adopting a particular policy. . . . T h u s if we choose to contract to a smaller pool, the average
is calculated only over the members of that pool: the utility losses
involved in eliminating existing persons or not producing new ones
do not in themselves figure in the theory's calculations at all.
[P. 1051
This claim can be challenged. As Derek Parfit notes, "It assumes that
only the survivors matter. Why not say that everyone matters?"lg Parfit's
suggestion is that the relevant average is the average of all the people who
ever live, not simply those who survive. T h e acceptance of this suggestion
would entail that no one can be excluded from the class of persons whose
average we are computing. Thus, even if an existing person is killed, he
must nevertheless be counted in the denominator. Since, had he not been
killed, his probable future utilities would have figured in the numerator,
to kill him must, if his life would have been worth living, be counterproductive, since to do so involves lowering the numerator relative to the
fixed denominator.20 Therefore, on this understanding of the Average
View, killing people can normally be expected to lower rather than raise
the average.
This reply seems cogent. But, even though the Average View can thus
be defended against this standardly invoked objection, there are, nevertheless, problems which remain. It might be urged that Parfit's revision (call
it the "timeless version" of the Average View) manages to extricate the
18. Among those who have employed it are James E. Meade, Richard Henson, Robert
Nozick, Philip E. Devine, Peter Singer, and another contributor to this volume, Robert
Scott, Jr., (p. 78).
19. Parfit, "Overpopulation" (1973 draft-unpublished). Note that the understanding
of the Average View which leaves the theory open to Sumner's objection does seem to violate
the principle of utilitarian impartiality to which Sumner appeals i n his second argument.
20. T h i s claim assumes that the Average View employs a totaling principle in assessing
single lives and applies the averaging principle only to populations. In other words, the data
o n individual utilities required by the Average View are being provided by the Total View. I
assume that the application of the Average View to single lives (i.e., each person should aim
for, say, the highest average per year lived) would be unacceptable; for it would entail that, if
the remainder of a person's life were destined to be on average a little less good than his life
has been hitherto, it would be better for his life to end now.
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Ethics
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theory only at the cost of rendering it unworkable. In practice it would be
impossible to calculate averages for all persons who ever live: we would be
unable to fix the size of our denominator, and even if we could the utility
information needed to fill out the numerator would remain inaccessible.
Perhaps this objection can be met by further revising the theory. It
might be said that if we simply take the average for all those about whom
we have reliable utility information, we will have not only a workable
theory, but also a theory that is immune to Sumner's objection. For the
people whom the theory (call it the "second revision") fails to consider
would not, for that reason, be susceptible to "elimination" in the service
of a higher average: since they never figure in the denominator, one could
not get a smaller denominator by killing them. (Moreover, one does not, ex
hypothesi, know whether or not they are below average.)
Perhaps we could simplify matters even further by stipulating that,
in performing our calculations, we need only consider those among the
living about whom we have reliable utility information. Since we cannot
affect past people, this further restriction seems admissible. (Call this
version of the theory the "third revision.")
Now in fact it makes a difference which of these revisions we ch0ose.2~
T o see that they are not extensionally equivalent we may have recourse to
an example.22 Suppose that we intend to add to the present population
and that two alternatives are open to us. We could either produce a group
with 100,000 members, all at utility level 5, or a group with 1,000
members, each of whom would have a utility level of 50. I shall call these
the "A group" and the "B group," respectively. Suppose further that,
among existing people, we have reliable utility information concerning
10,000 people. All of these have utility levels of 1, and their welfare will be
unaffected by the choice between the A group and the B group. Finally,
suppose that we also have reliable utility information concerning
1 million people who have lived in the recent past, and that these people,
too, all had utility levels of 1. If we choose i n accordance with the second
revision, which requires us to consider all those concerning whom we
have utility information (i.e., 1,010,000 people), the calculation will proceed as follows: if we add the A group (100,000 at 5) the average will be
1.36, whereas if we add the B group (1,000 at 50) the average will be 1.05;
so we should opt for the A group. But, if we choose in accordance with the
third revision, which instructs us to consider only those among existing
people concerning whom we have utility information, the calculation
will be different: if we add the A group the average will be 4.64, whereas if
we add the B group the average will be 5.45; so we should add the B group.
T h e two versions of the theory thus yield conflicting directives. T h e prob21. As Narveson is aware (p. 46).
22. My choice of figures here has been governed solely by the requirements of the
example-otherwise the numbers are entirely arbitrary. T h e pretense to precision should not
be taken seriously.
McMahan
Review Essay
1 15
lem is that the average depends on the size of the "base" upon which one
calculates.
T h e fact that averages are relative to the selection of the base also
entails that the judgments of each of these revisions will be relative to the
state of our present knowledge. Suppose we subscribe to the second revision. If we happen to be ignorant of the 1 million members of former
generations, we will decide to produce the B group, but if we suddenly
discover utility data on these 1 million people, we will have to reverse
our decision in favor of the A group. An analogous point could be urged
against the third revision with regard to o u r knowledge of the welfare of
existing people.
T h u s , the two revisions are not equivalent, and each contains an
essential element of arbitrariness. It should be clear, moreover, that
neither is equivalent to the timeless version, and therefore that neither can
function as a substitute for it. T h e timeless version employs a different
(though unspecifiable) base.
T h e timeless version alone escapes the charge of arbitrariness, i n that
there are n o ad hoc restrictions o n the group whose average it calculates,
and the size of the base it employs thus does not fluctuate concomitantly
with the extent of present knowledge. But, as we have seen, this version is
unworkable: the required information is simply unobtainable. It might
be maintained, however, that all consequentialist theories are afflicted
with this problem to a greater or lesser extent, and that, i n this case as i n
others, one must seek to approximate the right answers as nearly as possible. In other words, one might contend that the timeless version would
provide the right answers were the requisite data accessible, a n d that the
various ad hoc revisions can be regarded as workable yet imperfect substitutes yielding only approximately right answers.
This proposal might be interesting if the timeless version were plausible-but it is not. On this view, whether or not a person should have a
child now depends in part o n how well off-and how numerous-people
were in the Stone Age, and it is difficult to see why this sort of consideration should be relevant. (Comparison between a child's welfare and the
average level of his contemporaries might be thought relevant o n grounds
of equality, but inequality between people now and people i n the remote
past hardly seems to matter.) T h u s , I conclude that even if the Average
View can survive Sumner's assaults, its prospects d o not seem very bright.
But the extent to which the Total View might profit from its defeat remains to be seen.
VII. SIKORA AND T H E T O T A L VIEW
R. I. Sikora's piece, which is probably the richest and most provocative
contribution to the volume, seeks to establish a variety of points which are
unified by the supposition that they all converge in support of the Total
View. Among Sikora's numerous aims, there are two which I shall dis-
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Ethics
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cuss. These are, first, to defend the Total View against certain objections, and, second, to provide an argument i n its favor.
Sikora cites "two main objections" to the Total View. T h e first is
what he calls the "possible persons objection": that the Total View assigns us obligations "relating to" or "concerning" possible persons.
(pp. 147 and 115). He never makes explicit, however, what he takes the
force of this objection to be. It seems to me that the only plausible interpretation of the objection is that it is absurd if a theory assigns us obligations which are owed to possible people. Sikora, in fact, states the objection in this form in a n earlier paper.Z3 But, as he states it here, it seems not
to be an objection at all; for any theory could conceivably assign us a n
obligation "concerning" a possible person (e.g., could i n some circumstance make it obligatory for us to have a child). Insofar as the objection
takes the plausible form, moreover, it fails to hold against either the Total
View or the Average View, since the obligations which these theories
impose are not owed to anyone, whether actual or possible.Z4 It seems,
therefore, that the objection is misplaced, and thus we may ignore its role
in Sikora's argument.
T h e second major objection to the Total View is "that it commits us
to what Derek Parfit calls the repugnant conclusion: that if an extremely
populous world with a happiness-average barely above neutrality would
have a greater happiness-total than a much less populous world with a far
higher happiness-average, we would be forced to choose the first" (p. 113).
While he concedes that the Total View "cannot escape Parfit's objection,"
he brings forward a number of arguments i n a n attempt to diminish the
force of the objection. T h e first of these arguments claims to show that
most rival theories also entail the repugnant conclusion (henceforth the
RC). T h e argument is based on the following hypothetical case. T h e
world has been devastated by nuclear war and the quality of the survivors'
lives has been reduced to a very low level. These remaining people,
though sterile, can, at some cost to themselves, repopulate the world by
rearing a great batch of "test-tube babies" w h o will live quite happy lives.
If the survivors make the sacrifice, people will on average be much better
off, though the survivors themselves will of course be worse off. Sikora
observes that "any theory that takes it to be wrong to require those alive to
make sacrifices to bring about the existence of possible persons must
23. R. I. Sikora, "Utilitarianism: T h e Classical Principle and the Average Principle,"
Canadian Journal of Philosophy 5 (1975): 409-19.
24. Sikora is, perhaps, misled by a n ambiguity in the term "obligation." Many writers
use the term in a wide sense in which it covers all moral reasons for acting. (Utilitarians in
particular tend to use the term in this way, since their theory does not admit a n esperially
rich range of categories of reasons for acting.) In this sense, obligations need not be owed.
There is, however, a narrower sense of the term in which obligations form only one category
of moral reasons. Obligations in this sense are owed to assignable individuals. Those writers
who, like Schwartz and perhaps Narveson, seem to think both that obligations must be owed
and that they exhaust all types of moral reasons are, presumably, sliding from the narrow to
the wider use of the term.
McMahan
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choose . . . the world with a very low happiness level: that is, it must
embrace the repugnant conclusion" (p. 115).
It is evident that something has gone wrong. We have been told that
the Total View "cannot escape" the RC, but i n this case the Total View
conspicuously avoids the conclusion which Sikora regards as repugnant,
since it u ~ o u l ddirect the survivors to raise the children. T h e reason that
this anomaly has emerged is that the "RC" which appears in the case just
cited fails to match the descriptions of the R C which Sikora gives elsewhere. T h e RC which is implied by the Total View, and with which
Sikora is nominally concerned, consists in the claim that, for any world
with a finite number of people, each of whom has a life of a very high
quality, there is i n principle a world which, because it is vastly more
populous, is superior, even though each person i n this world has a life
which is only barely worth living.Z5 T h e second world is deemed superior
on the ground that its more numerous inhabitants together possess more
of what makes life worth living. T h e assumption behind the conclusion is
that losses in the quality of life can always be made u p for by sufficiently
large gains in quantity. But in the case which Sikora has constructed, the
world which he claims it would be repugnant to choose does not have the
greater total of utility; nor does it have the larger population. Thus, to fail
to require the move from this world to the other is not to embrace the RC.
In spite of the fact that Sikora has not achieved his avowed aim,
which is to show that theories which do not require us to produce extra
happy people entail the RC, his argument will still have force if we find it
disturbing that these theories have the implication to which he calls attention. How damaging to these theories is the exposure of this implication?
It should be noted that Sikora's example has certain features that may
be influencing our response in subtle ways. For example, if the survivors
do not make the requisite sacrifices, the human race will perish. Many
people may take the view that, while we should not normally be required
to make sacrifices in order to ensure that more happy people will exist, we
should be required to d o so i n certain condtions-for example, when the
race u ~ o u l dotherwise die out. T h e example would lose much of its purchase if the alternatives were ( a ) requiring sacrifices to secure the fairly
immediate production of the populous, high-average world; and ( 6 ) allowing for the continuation of the low-average world and the gradual
repopulation of the world without sacrifice.
Another feature of the case which may affect our intuitions is that,
since the survivors have lives which are just barely worth living, their
making the requisite sacrifices would render their lives n o longer worth
living. Thus, it is perhaps extravagant to claim that it is "repugnant" if a
25. T h i s description of the RC (which follows Parfit's) differs from the one initially
stated by Sikora in that here each person in the larger world has a life just barely worth
living, whereas in Sikora's description the people in the larger world have lives which are o n
average just barely worth living. T h u s , Sikora's statement allows for the possibility of
inequality while the one I have given does not.
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Ethics
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theory does not demand that these people reduce their lives to that level.
Indeed, Sikora himself elsewhere notes with approval "our ordinary tendency to think that it is more appropriate to ask for sacrifices from those
who are well-off than from those w h o are badly off" (p. 122). (Notice also
that the theories Sikora is criticizing d o not prohibit the survivors from
making the sacrifices; they only fail to require them to. T h e Total View
leaves n o corresponding loophole for the avoidance of the RC.)
Finally, there is a contrast between the R C and the implication which
Sikora draws which deserves mention. T h e Total View regards the more
populous world of the R C as intrinsically superior to the world in which
people are better off. But the theories against which Sikora's argument is
directed d o not claim relative superiority for the world with the lower
average; they favor it because the move to the larger would would be worse
for the people who exist. Person-affecting theories, which are among the
prime targets of Sikora's argument, necessarily focus on process considerations, since they are concerned with the effects of processes, events, acts,
etc., on people. They provide n o criteria for the global evaluation of
possible worlds considered in isolation from their particular histories.
Given these doubts about Sikora's example, I would contend that,
while his argument is not without some force, it is clearly not as powerful
a n objection as the R C is. Sikora has not, therefore, succeeded i n showing
that rival theories are open to a n objection which is equally grave as that
which Parfit a n d Rawls have urged against the Total View.
Sikora's second line of defense against the charge that the Total View
entails the R C is based on the contention that "the low-average alternative
of the repugnant conclusion would not be worse than the actual world"
(p. 117). Presumably we are intended to infer that, since the actual world
is not repugnant, the RC must be "something we can live with after all"
(p. 116).
This argument assumes that the world of the RC is like the actual
world in containing natural or social inequality. T h e world of the RC as
Parfit understands it does not have this feature. But this suggests that, if
natural inequality is undesirable, and if Sikora is right about the average
quality of life in the actual world, then the world of Parfit's RC is better
than the actual world.
Is life i n the actual world on average just barely worth living? T h e
suggestion that it is strikes me as most implausible. This u ~ o u l dmean that
nearly all those persons (perhaps the majority of the world's inhabitants)
who are less well off than the average person have lives which are not
worth having (or even worth not having). Sikora is thus led to the ungenerous conclusion that these people are mistaken i n attributing value to
their own lives. H e is led to embrace this conclusion because he accepts a
hedonistic account of what makes a life worth living (see Sec. IV). He
concedes, however, that if we accept a nonhedonistic understanding of the
notion of a life worth living, it is then conceivable that a life could be on
balance unhappy a n d still be worth living. T h u s , it could be true that,
McMahan
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119
even if Sikora were right about the hedonic character of lives i n the actual
world, these lives would be o n average well worth living, that is, better
than the lives in the world of the RC.
Sikora's argument is, however, misdirected. Even if the world of the
RC were n o worse than the actual world, this would not defuse the objection to the Total View. Sikora seems to assume that at least part of what is
supposedly repugnant about the R C is the nature of the populous world
itself. T h i s is suggested by his use of the phrase "the 'repugnant' average"
(p. 123). By comparing this world with the actual world he is attempting
to show that there is nothing inherently repugnant about it. But what is
objectionable about the RC is not the populous world itself but the comparative evaluation of worlds-that is, the claim that the more populous
world is superior to the world in which people are all better off. Let us
assume that Sikora is right about the character of the actual world. Then
suppose we compare a n enormous world i n which people have lives like
those in the actual world with a world which is one-tenth this size, but i n
which people are almost ten times as well off. T h e analogue of the R C in
this case would be the claim that the second world is worse. T h e force of
the RC lies primarily i n the comparative evaluation required by the Total
View.26
Sikora's third line of defense consists in the claim that the Total View
would in practice never require us to add vast numbers of new people to
the population, thereby diminishing the quality of existing people's
live~.~
In7 this he agrees with Sumner. I shall not discuss his arguments for
this claim, but shall make only the following observation. If his reasoning
were correct, a n d we could not i n the world as it is increase the total of
utility by increasing our numbers, this would not seem to be a cause for
relief to a Utilitarian, but should seem as lamentable as the fact that we
are limited i n our capacity to increase the total of utility by increasing the
quality of individual lives.
Having now examined Sikora's various indirect arguments for the
Total View, I should like to comment briefly on the positive argument
which he gives in support of this theory. T h e argument is as follows: For
any large group of people we might add to the world, it is virtually certain
that some members of the group will have wretched lives. This fact counts
against the production of the group. Thus, unless there is positive value in
adding happy people to the world, we must regard it as wrong, other
things being equal, to produce the group. Sikora concludes that there must
26. There is, thus, more to the RC than the simple claim that the the Total View would
require that we increase the population of the actual world at the expense of existing people.
It is for this reason that the constructive proposal of Robert Scott, Jr.'s essay is unsuccessful.
Scott claims ( p p . 84-86) that by attaching to the Total View a principle that discounts the
utilities of future people, we would be able to avoid the major objections to that theory. But
the incorporation of a discount rate for the future will d o nothing to prevent the Total View
from yielding implausible judgements o n the comparative value of possible worlds.
27. If his previous claim about the character of the actual world were correct, this
auxilary claim would follow as a matter of logic.
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Ethics
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be positive value in producing happy people-otherwise it would in practice "always be wrong per se to bring any large group of people into
existence"; and this is an "absurd conclusion" (pp. 136 and 161).
T o the extent that Sikora's reductio depends o n what we would be
committed to in practice, it is unsuccessful. For in practice other things
are not equal, and there will usually be "something adequate to offset the
wrongness of bringing the wretched people into existence" other than the
potential happiness of the other members of the group-for example, the
desire to have children on the part of the various potential parents.
T h e problem with Sikora's reasoning throughout this argument is
that he tends to let the ceteris paribus clause slip out of sight (e.g., p. 141).
If we keep this clause fully i n view, Sikora's argument seems somewhat
less compelling, for then the only cases i n which the argument is
applicable are those in which existing people fail, on balance, to derive
any benefit from the addition of the new group-for instance, people
might simply be indifferent. In order to test for the response which Sikora
is seeking to elicit, we must be careful to screen o u t extraneous considerations such as the alleged right to procreate, which might override the
badness of the outcome in which miserable people come to exist. When
factors of this sort have all been excluded, not everyone's intuitions may
be expected to favor Sikora's view. Still his argument does present a
challenge.28 For my part, I do find it implausible to suppose that it would
be wrong to bring into existence a large group of people, consisting
mainly of happy ones, when effects on existing people balance out. T h e
problem is to reconcile this view with the repudiation of the RC.
VIII. GLOVER'S SUGGESTION AND T H E MERE
ADDITION ARGUMENT
Can we reconcile the view that there is value in the creation of people with
lives worth living with the repudiation of the RC? One promising line of
thought has been suggested by Jonathan Glover. Glover writes that "we
may decide that we value people's lives having various qualities (which
would p u t them high on the scale of 'worth-while life') and that the
absence of these qualities cannot be compensated for by any numbers of
extra worthwhile lives without them." H e argues further that this view
28. There are variants of Sikora's argument which may be even more compelling. Here
are two examples. First, any child o n e might have would have some negative utility in his
life, and this counts against conceiving him. Thus, unless his prospective positive utility has
positive value, and so is capable of canceling out the negative value of his negative utility,
then it must, other things being equal, be wrong to conceive h i m . But if a child's positive
utility can count as as counterbalance to his negative utility, then it should also count as a
reason in favor of conceiving him. Second, there is some small probability that any child one
might have would have a life that wrould be worth not living, and this counts against having
children. T h u s , unless this possibility is outweighed by the much greater probability that
one's child would have a life worth living, then it must, other things being equal, be wrong
to have children. But if the probability that one's child's life would be worth living can
count against the possibility that it would not, then it should also count as a reason i n favor
of conceiving him.
McMahan
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121
draws support from an "analogy with common attitudes to what is valued
within a single life."29 There are, for example, some things which we
value, though n o amount of these things could make u p for the loss of
certain other things which we value more.
This argument appears to abandon the assumption of the Total View
that what matters is the overall sum of utility (or whatever it is that makes
life valuable). For if lives without the qualities Glover refers to have some
positive value, and the value of lives with these qualities is not infinite,
and if the two types of life can be ranked on the same scale, then there
must be some number of lives of the former sort which together contain
more of what is of value than a given number of lives of the latter sort.
On the other hand, it might be argued that, if we pursue the analogy
with values within a single life, Glover's theory might be rendered compatible with the Total View. Suppose we accept a n analysis of utility in
terms of the satisfaction of preferences. Suppose further that there are
some things (call them "6's") which I would rather have than not have,
and which thus have some positive value, and that there are certain other
things (call them "$'s") which I value more than @'s,even to the extent
that I would prefer to have a single $ rather than any number of 6's. If
what gives me the most utility is what I most prefer (given deliberative
rationality), then we may be led to the paradoxical conclusion that the
positive values of any number of 6 ' s cannot be summed in such a way as
to yield a total as large as the value of a single I/I. (Of course, this would
not be paradoxical if the value of 6 ' s diminished concomitantly with the
increase i n their number, or if the 6 ' s were spread over time and I had a
discount rate for the future; so we need to stipulate, perhaps implausibly,
that neither of these conditions obtains.) One might then attempt to extrapolate this result to the interpersonal sphere by claiming that, by analogy, the value of certain lives is such that n o number of these values can be
summed to produce a total as large as the value of a single life of a
different ("higher") sort.
There are objections to this latter argument, though space does not
permit their full development here. I shall state them only briefly and
without elaboration. First, the claim that what a person most wants is
what gives him the most utility can be challenged, even from within the
preference theory itself. What a person most wants, for example, may be a
course of events i n which far fewer of his desires are satisfied than might
be in some alternative course of events. He may prefer the former course
on, say, perfectionist or aesthetic grounds. T o make it true by definition
that the satisfaction of this single preference is what will maximize the
individual's utility is to beg a number of important substantive questions.
Second, it is not clear that a n argument based on the preferences of a
single individual can be extended to cover interpersonal cases. In the
interpersonal case, there is nothing analogous to the preference for a
29. Jonathan Glover, Cnuszng Death and Snuzng L z m s (Harmondsworth: Pengutn
Books, 1977), p. 71.
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Ethics
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single $over any number of 4 ' s o n which to base the claim that a single
life might contain more of what is valuable than any number of lives of a
lesser quality .30
It therefore seems better to regard Glover's suggested theory as an
alternative to the Total View rather than (as I take Glover to imply) a
version of it. Does this theory enable us to avoid the RC? Where arguments for the R C rely o n the claim that what matters is the total amount
of intrinsic value, or o n the claim that there is value in the creation of
extra lives that are worth living, I think it does. But Derek Parfit has
formulated an argument, which he calls the Mere Addition Argument,
which leads to the R C but which does not depend on either of these
assumption^.^^ Consider the following diagram:
10
- - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - the average of
I
A+
A+
z
I
T h e rectangles designated by capital letters represent populations. While
the horizontal dimension of each rectangle indicates the size of the p o p u lation, the vertical dimension represents the level of welfare enjoyed (uniformly) by the members of the population. Thus, while each person in A
is very well off, each person i n Z has a life that is just barely worth living.
T h e R C is simply the claim that Z, if large enough, is better than A. T h e
Total View directly implies this claim.
But the same conclusion can be reached by a more circuitous route.
This argument has two stages. T h e first consists in the claim that A+ is
not worse than A. (It should be emphasized that the claim is not that A+ is
better than A,) T h i s seems unexceptionable, since the only difference between the two worlds is that A+ contains a n extra group of people, all of
whom have lives worth living and who cause n o diminution i n the level
of welfare enjoyed by others. There are, however, two objections to this
claim. T h e first is that A+ has a lower average. But, as Parfit points out, it
seems absurd to object to a lower average "if it involves n o loss of any
kind, but mere addition." Indeed, the fact that the Average View judges
30. It w o u l d be interesting t o explore the implications o f a view o f this sort for issues
involving the saving o f lives.
31. Parfit, "Overpopulation" (1973 d r a f t ) ,p. 4. See also his paper i n Bayles, n n . 1 1 and
34.
McMahan
Reuiew Essay
123
A S to be worse than A may be construed as a reductio against that theory.
(This argument against the Average View is analogous to Sumner's third
argument against that view.) T h e second reason why A S might be considered worse than A is that it involves inequality. This feature may seem less
objectionable, however, if it is stipulated that the inequality is not the
product of an inegalitarian social system (e.g., the two groups may exist
on opposite sides of the world a n d have n o knowledge of each other).
Moreover, when we are simply comparing A S with A, the alternative to
inequality is just for the worse-off g r o u p not to exist, so that, if anything,
they benefit from the inequality. It therefore seems safe to conclude that
A S is not worse than A.
T h e second step i n the argument consists in the claim that B is better
than AS. T h i s claim is supported by a number of considerations. For
example, B has both a larger total and a higher average. T h e appeal to
the average in this case, moreover, seems appropriate, since the same
number of people are, o n average, better off in B, which is also superior
both in terms of the maximin rule and o n grounds of equality. Again, the
appeal to equality here seems more appropriate than in the preceding
case, since in this case the avoidance of inequality does not involve the
nonexistence of the worse-off group. (Indeed, it is possible, in comparing
A S with B, to assume that the people i n B are the descendants of-or even
the same people as-the people i n AS, and that the level of the worse-off
half in A S has risen by more than the level of the better-off half has
declined.)
Notice, however, that if B is better than AS, and A+ is not worse than
A, then it follows that B is better than A. And the argument can be
reapplied (BS is not worse than B; C is better than BS . . . ) until we reach
z.32
T o which step in this argument would Glover's theory object, and at
what stage of the progression toward Z? T h e most plausible suggestion
seems to be that the theory would object to the second step in the argument at the point at which the shift from the "plus world" to the world
with the lower maximum quality of life would involve the loss of the
valuable qualities to which Glover alludes. But, in this case, the sacrifice
32. Ronald Dworkin has recently pointed out that the claim that A+ is not worse than A
need not entail that it is at least as good as A. There may be only partial comparability. This
can be seen as follows: Suppose that there is another world, A++, which is like A+ except
that the worse-off group in A++ is slightly better off than the worse-off group in A+. If we
think that A++ is better than A+, and that A+ is not worse than A, then it seems to follow
that A++ is better than A. But, in fact, we are not compelled to accept this conclusion. It may
be that there is partial indeterminancy such that, while we may believe that each is neither
better nor worse than A, it does not follow that each is exactly equally as good as A, nor that
each is equally good as the other. If we accept Dworkin's claim that A and A+ may be only
partially comparable, this will weaken Parfit's argument. T h e fact that B is better than
something that is not worse than A will then not entail that B is better than A-only that it
is not worse than A. T h e conclusion of the weakened argument will then be that Z is not
worse than A. This conclusion is sufficiently counterintuitive for the argument to retain its
force.
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Ethics
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in the quality of life would not be made simply for the sake of increasing
the number of lives. Thus, it is not clear that the objection actually follows from Glover's theory. In order to arrest the progression toward Z,
Glover's theory would have to insist o n the preservation of a certain
quality of life for some people at the expense not only of total utility, but
of average utility, maximin, and equality as well. If the level of quality it
insists o n preserving is high, then the theory will seem implausible in the
face of this formidable array of intuitions. If, o n the other hand, the level
of quality defended is relatively low, the theory must allow that for any
world whose inhabitants are all extremely well off, there is, in principle,
some much larger world which would be superior, even though each of its
inhabitants would have a life of this low quality. And this is, of course, a
version, albeit a weakened one, of the RC.
It should be mentioned, in concluding this section, that Parfit's Mere
Addition Argument is not a n ad hominem against Glover. Since it shows
that three perhaps equally compelling intuitions are incompatible, it
poses quite a general problem.
IX. R I G H T S
Most of the preceding discussion has taken place within a broadly utilitarian framework. It is sometimes suggested that the fact that utilitarian
theories encounter so many difficulties in the area of population theory
simply underlines their inadequacy, while even the most recalcitrant
population problems can be solved by an appeal to the theory of rights. It
is held, for example, that the recognition of a right to a certain m i n i m u m
level of welfare can provide a means of escape not only from the RC, but
also from the disturbing implications of the Identity Problem-for example, that social policies which reduce the quality of life i n the further
future cannot be criticized o n the ground that they are worse for future
people. For if the prevailing level of welfare in the world of the RC, or in
the world of the future if we implement certain policies, is lower than that
to which people have a right, then these states o f the world a n d the
policies which bring them about can be condemned as involving the
violation of rights. (We could also object to the move from A to A+ if the
worse-off group i n A+ would not be above the required m i n i m u m . ) Finally, it seems that the theory of rights could account for what I earlier
referred to as "the Asymmetry."
An initial response to these claims is to point out that the appeal to
rights, even if otherwise successful, would not entirely solve either of the
two problems mentioned. For, as in the case of Glover's theory, the problem of the R C could reemerge, albeit less disconcertingly, at a higher
level. And the Identity Problem also reappears. If there is a choice between
two policies, one of which requires minor sacrifices now i n order to maintain a high quality of life i n the future, while the other provides minor
benefits now at the cost of lowering the future quality of life to just above
the stated m i n i m u m , n o one will be worse off, and n o one's rights will be
violated, if we choose the latter.
McMahan
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125
In spite of the fact that the argument from rights has these limitations, it would nevertheless, if successful, g o far enough in the direction of
a solution to warrant a certain amount of optimism. I shall argue, however, that it is unsuccessful. T h e objections to the argument are of two sorts,
formal and substantive. I shall begin with the formal objection.
In the problematic cases with which the theory of rights is intended
to deal, the persons whose rights would allegedly be violated can, in fact,
exist only i n a state i n which their rights are violated. So the alternative to
violating these people's rights is, in effect, to deprive the rights of their
bearers. Thus, it would seem that we must say either that in preventing
these people from existing we would be honoring rights without bearers,
or that the rights which these people have can exist only when they are
violated-in other words, that these people possess rights which can be
violated but not honored.33
While I think that this formal objection can be met, the issues here
are too complex to be adequately discussed in so short a space. I shall,
therefore, simply draw attention to the fact that this problem has parallels both i n this and other areas. If, for example, we can harm people by
bringing them into existence, then we may have reason not to d o what
would harm people, even if we thereby ensure that there is n o one whom
we have spared from harm. Analogously, it might be argued that there is
reason to avoid violating people's rights, even if one does not thereby
honor anyone's right.
T h e problem we are considering is not peculiar to population theory.
There are numerous cases i n which o u r behavior is controlled by a regard
for rights which people might, but do not have-for example, when one
avoids entering into certain relations with a person because one would be
unable to honor the rights which the person would then acquire against
one. In this case it would be misleading to object that, in refraining from
entering into these relations, one cannot be satisfying the constraints laid
down by a right, since n o right exists until these relations are established.
T h e phrase "there is a right" or "a right exists" is ambiguous. O n the one
hand there is a restricted sense of the phrase according to which the claim
that there is a right can be true only if there is a n identifiable individual
who possesses the right and to whom our obligations are owed. O n the
other hand, however, there is a broader sense of the phrase such that the
claim that there is a right can be true even if there is n o one who actually
possesses that right. Given this distinction, there is n o incoherence in the
claim that there are cases in which one can respect a right by ensuring that
n o one (whether a n actual or a possible person) comes to possess that
right.34
33 T h i s problem need not always arise in the case of the RC. If we were to make a rapid
transition to the world of the RC we would violate the rights of existing persons-rights
which could be honored.
34. In a case of this sort, the duty which is correlative with the right is not a duty which
is owed to anyone. But population theory is a n area in which we may expect the collapse of
certain standard assumptions.
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Ethics
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Even if, however, the formal objection can be met, there remain substantive objections which are not so easily evaded. T h e weakest of these
points is the claim, standardly urged against the similar theories of the
"social minimum" or "utility floor," that the specification of the acceptable minimum level of welfare must be to some extent both arbitrary and
socially relative. I shall not dwell o n this point, but shall simply note that,
if the appeal to rights is to have any force against the R C and the Identity
Problem, the m i n i m u m level of welfare to which people allegedly have a
right will have to be well above the level at which life is just barely worth
living.
T h e second point is perhaps more forceful. In the cases with which
we are concerned, there exist people who have lives which are worth
living, but which are nevertheless below the level of welfare to which
people have a right. T h e theory of rights judges that it is objectionable in
itself that these people should exist in this condition. But is this
plausible? As we have seen, what is objectionable about the R C is the
choice of the more populous world when there is an alternative in which
people are better off-not the mere fact that in the world of the R C there
exist people with low levels of welfare. Again, consider the choice between
social policies mentioned earlier. What makes it wrong to choose the
policy which lowers the quality of life in the future is connected with the
fact that there is a n alternative policy which would not lower the future
quality of life. But if what is objectionable in these cases is not the mere
fact that people with low levels of welfare come to exist, but is instead the
fact that these people are brought into existence rather than some other
group of people, then the appeal to rights is giving the right answers in
these cases for the wrong reasons.
Is it, in fact, objectionable to conceive people whose lives, while
worth living, would nevertheless be below some m i n i m u m level, even if it
is not possible to produce happier people instead, and even if the existence of these people would not affect existing people for the worse? T h e
affirmative answer given by rights theory may seem counterintuitive. If we
believe that people can benefit by being conceived, then it will be in a
person's interests to have received a marginally subminimal life (assumi n g that it is the only life he could have), even though this (allegedly)
violates his rights. It is normally supposed that the primary function of
rights is to protect people's interests; but in the present case the right in
question has the opposite effect. (If we reject the view that conception can
be a benefit, then the most that can be claimed is that to violate a person's
right by bringing h i m into existence at a level below the minimum but
above zero is not to act against his interests.) If those writers are correct
who suggest that there is a conceptual connection between the ascription
of rights and the protection of interests, then the objection I a m pressing
will be not only substantive but conceptual as well.
There are, of course, cases in which it would be wrong to violate a
person's rights in order to benefit him. For example, it might be wrong to
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violate a person's right to be told the truth even when it would be painful
for him to know the truth. But cases of this sort are relevantly different i n
that the right in question will not be a right which is grounded o n
considerations of welfare. It will, instead, be concerned with the agent's
dignity, autonomy, or something of this sort. While it may be plausible in
these cases to suppose that considerations of dignity or autonomy override considerations of welfare, it is surely less plausible to suggest that we
should refrain from benefiting a person simply i n order to avoid violating
one of his welfare rights.
Finally, it is arguable that conceiving a person with a life below the
m i n i m u m but above zero would not constitute a violation of his rights at
all. For, if the person is later glad that he was conceived, this might be
regarded as tantamount to his retroactively waiving his right. If it is
reasonable to assume that this tacit waiving will occur, then i t is to that
extent reasonable to assume that n o violation of rights occurs when the
person is conceived.35 T h i s claim is supported by an analogy with our
treatment of young children. Suppose that, in order to save a child's life,
we must perform a n operation o n him which will cause him to be
seriously handicapped. It is the expectation that he will later be glad that
the operation was performed that permits us to believe that we do not
violate his rights by performing the operation without his consent.
For these various reasons I think that the appeal to rights, while
perhaps formally admissible, is nevertheless implausible. There is a tendency i n recent moral philosophy to try to couch discussions of all moral
issues i n the terminology of rights theory, but the couch can be a Procrustean bed.
X. CONCLUSION
T h e foregoing review of some of the major problems of population theory
should have revealed how profoundly difficult these problems are. I suspect that one reason for this is that the intuitions that we have in this area
seem, as it were, to have been borrowed from other areas rather than to
have been conditioned directly by o u r exposure to the problems themselves. Until rather recently these problems were not sufficiently urgent at
the practical level to intrude themselves upon o u r notice: people i n the past
had little capacity designedly to affect the welfare of future generations; they
rarely contemplated the possible extinction of the h u m a n species by h u man action-and so o n . T h u s , it should not be surprising if it turns out
that these problems bring to light certain hitherto submerged conflicts
among o u r commonsense intuitions and, therefore, that n o consistent
theory will be without unappealing features.
35. One could also argue for this conclusion on the basis of the claim "that, in general,
violation of an individual's right to something involves frustrating the corresponding desire." See Michael Tooley, "A Defense of Abortion and Infanticide," in T h e Problem of
Abortion, ed. Joel Feinberg (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1973), p. 60.